The frenzy of today's musclecar speculation has made clones commonplace. You know, a 318 Challenger becomes a Hemi car, or a straight-six Mustang emerges from the garage with stripes and Shelby badges. The car will never be the real thing, but it's close enough for most people, and often far cheaper. While clones are based on real cars that were offered for sale, a phantom is a never-was. Take a '37 Ford three-window. Uncle Henry never built one, but a lot of street rodders do. When it comes to musclecars, you've no doubt seen a few GTO station wagons or Buick GS-nosed El Caminos. Those are phantoms.

Steve Strope of Pure Vision took the phantom approach on the Z/28 Nova built for owner Gary Gagliardi-though the project didn't start out that way. Steve says, "Gary wanted me to build him a car, and after some discussion we decided on a Nova or a Buick Apollo because they were a little different. We were going to give it the full. Pro Touring treatment and put a Kenny Duttweiler Buick Grand National motor in it. Even set on 'medium bad ass,' Kenny could make like 600 hp and it'd be different." But that's not how the project ended up.

Gary has several very nice cars already, including a '70 Hemi 'Cuda and a '7011/42 Z28 that are straight restorations. That fact must have been bubbling around in Steve's head, because while driving home from the shop one night the idea for the Z/28 Nova popped in. "Gary's a little more into the original cars, but he wanted something hot-rodded, so the idea for the Z/28 Nova just came to me. I thought, 'Why not play a game of what if? What if Chevrolet had offered the Z/28 option package to the Nova as well as the Camaro? And what if we found one and restored it but with modern flair? How would that look?'"

Gary loved the idea, and the result is the Nova you see here, which made its debut at the '06 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Other than the one-off Budnik wheels, this looks like a car that Chevrolet could have built back in 1969. The Hugger Orange and white stripes are the first clue to what it's all about, but the ruse is more than just skin deep. Open the doors and you'll notice that it feels much more like a '69 Camaro than a '69 Nova. The seats, dash, and center console are all Camaro parts, and the black-and-white houndstooth upholstery is Camaro-spec stuff supplied by PUI. Open the hood and you'll find what looks just like a DZ-coded 302 small-block with the rare dual-quad cross-ram induction setup. It even has the steel cross-ram cowl-induction hood.

Most of the car retains a factory look, maintaining the theme of taking an original car and upgrading it with a few modern parts. You know, a typical street machine. For example, the engine compartment isn't overdone; there are a lot of satin-black and factory parts, and even the Optima battery was disguised to look like an original Delco. Headers and aftermarket control arms are the other modern speed parts visible under the hood. Where an original Z/28 Nova (had it existed) might have had JL8 brakes, this one sports more modern Corvette brakes. The transmission is still a stick, as all Z/28s were, but has been updated to a Tremec five-speed to give Gary overdrive.

There's a lot going on with this car that doesn't immediately grab your attention. There's a ton of custom work in the headlight bezels and rear spoiler, for example, which is not immediately obvious unless you know Novas and Camaros intimately. Even putting the Camaro parts in the interior, which you would think would be pretty easy, required some thought. Steve says, "The seat mount brackets are different, so to get the Camaro seats in we had to custom-make the brackets. The rear seat in a Nova is also much bigger than a Camaro's, so Eric Thorsen Custom Upholstery took the repop covers from PUI, dissected them, and then redid them to fit and work with the houndstooth pattern." The Camaro dash support wasn't that hard to adapt since the only real difference between Camaro and Nova dashes is that the Camaro's has a few more holes for trim pieces. The center console required some custom brackets, too.

"Underneath it's basically a Pro Touring car," Steve told us. Detroit Speed minitubs, leaf-spring relocating shackles, and a narrowed gas tank allow 305/30ZR19 Pirelli tires under the rear. The front suspension uses a complete Global West G-Plus system and American Touring Specialties aluminum spindles with Corvette hubs mounting Z06 14-inch rotors and six-piston calipers. The rear brakes are actually a Wilwood kit with the Wilwood name milled off and the Corvette logo painted on to match the front. The final touch is a set of one-off (for now) Budnik wheels designed like '60s daisy mags. Of course Steve is quick to point out that all the sheetmetal, trim, rubber, wiring, and a thousand other parts came from both Year One and Goodmark.

A well-done phantom should not be obvious. If it's good, the average person shouldn't be able to notice that there's anything hinky going on. In that regard, Pure Vision pulled it off. It's an example of a car that should have been because it just seems so right-and it's also a really bitchin' street machine.

PowertrainEngine: What looks like a 302 is actually a Tom Nelson-built 406 with World Products heads, a hydraulic roller cam, and a reproduction-original cross-ram intake with dual Holley carburetors. An MSD Ready-to-Run distributor and Blaster coil look stock and light the fire. Stainless Works headers and 3-inch pipes lead to chambered ZL1-style mufflers.Power: On Nelson Racing's dyno the engine made 504 hp and 507 lb-ft of torque, and Steve says it idles at 800 rpm.Transmission: A Keisler Engineering kit was used to put a Tremec five-speed behind the high-winding mill. It's actuated by a Keisler hydraulic clutch setup.Rearend: A Strange S60 (think Dana 60) rearend with 3.73 gears will take all the abuse Gary can give it. Steve wanted to put a Strange 12-bolt into the car to continue the factory-built theme, but Gary insisted on the S60.

ChassisFrame: The rear framerails were narrowed a bit to fit the DSE deep tubs and were then tied to the stock front subframe with connectors.Suspension: It's all Pro Touring. In the front are Global West tubular upper and lower control arms, QA1 coilovers, a 1-inch sway bar, ATS aluminum spindles, and a Flaming River quick-ratio steering box. In the back are Global West leaf springs moved inboard with DSE shackles. Bilstein shocks control bounce, and the e-brake cables and all the brake system plumbing are custom.Brakes: The front brakes are 14-inchers from an '06 Z06 Corvette, and the rears are from Wilwood with the calipers modified to look like the Vette calipers in the front.Wheels: Budnik built these wheels specifically for this car to mimic the classic American Racing Daisys. They're 18s in the front and 19s in the rear for more rake.Tires: Pirelli tires are all around, with 305/30ZR19s in the back and 235/40ZR18s in the front.

StyleBody: The body was mostly left alone except for a few details. Pure Vision removed the factory bumper-to-grille filler panel and modified the headlight-bucket trim pieces to fill in the area. A Camaro rear spoiler was part of the Z/28 image, but it required new ends to fit the Nova's quarter-panels, and a peak was added in the center to match the one in the Nova's trunk lid.Paint: Gold Coast Custom sprayed the Hugger Orange and white stripes. The company also did the bodywork.Interior: A '69 Camaro dash, seats, and center console were adapted to fit. White was never an optional interior color on a '69 Nova, so this is all custom. Year One supplied the upholstery, using a PUI kit that had to be modified to fit the rear seat. Pure Vision also had PUI cover the stock Nova door panels since white vinyl Nova door panels don't exist.